I write with reference to your article on the demise of Monoptica (Optician November 11, 2005).
The article and associated editorial are unfair in the extreme to a highly innovative company which, although a little ahead of its time, gave a great deal to the profession.
Elements of Monoptica live on both through the College website and through the CET provider Replay Learning. The College's discussion forums Eye talk and PRP talk are direct evolutions of Monoptica's Net talk and PQE talk.
These discussion boards have provided a sounding board for many within the optical profession for more than five years, encouraging discussion on everything from fee structures to diagnosis of rare ocular conditions.
My involvement with Monoptica was through online CET provision. NetLectures was the first CET provider in the world to stream optometry lectures over the internet and was able to do it for free thanks to the support of Monoptica and various sponsors within the industry.
More than 2,000 CET points were awarded by NetLectures before the programme was moved to CD-Rom, eventually becoming Replay Learning Virtual Lectures.
Replay Learning amalgamated with Optometric Educators in October 2004 and is now one of the largest CET providers in the optical profession.
Perhaps Monoptica's launch name opticians-online was a little too similar to opticianonline for your editor to be comfortable, but I have no doubt that Monoptica influenced the development of optician's online service (then called optometryonline) and that all of us in the optical community are that bit better off thanks to the life and death of Monoptica.
Peter Charlesworth
Replay Learning
I write with reference to your article on the demise of Monoptica (Optician November 11, 2005).